Overture to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Overture, with pictures of Nazi architecture by Troost, sculpture by Breker, city designs by Hitler and Speer, Hitler sketches, autobahns, Auschwitz

Category:

Music

Tags:

• hitler
• wagner
• speer
• auschwitz
• nazi
• culture

[bag3lmonst3r]

Why in fk are you ranting on about sculpture by Breker, Auschwitz, Troost, nix nix nix...

Why aren't you telling us the most important thing : which orchestra is playing this?

Nazi skinhead pieceashit

[williamofocham]

@bag3lmonst3r

1. Chicago Symphony ORch. conduced Solti.

2. This is not the most important thing.

3. I am not a Nazi - watch it until the end.

[RedSeaView]

Indeed Wagner was popular on Third Reich, and as i know Hitler wanted that magnificent piece of music to be played at the begining of every party conference - but yet Wagner died about the time Hitler was born - so why spoiling and connecting this beautifull music with the atrocities of that era?

[williamofocham]

Wagner had an enormous influence on Hitler.  Not the other way round, I agree.

[mrcoolgenius]

Hitler played this at many of his rallies. He also played Mahler, until it was unearthed that Mahler was Jewish. Hitler just wanted something coherently German, not something nationalistic in itself. Die Meistersinger isn't an opera about nationalism, and National Socialism certainly didn't influence it, even though Wagner was a known anti semite. The opera shouldn't be discredited just because Hitler used Wagner's music so much or even for Wagner's ideologies. It's still great music!

[RichardAtwoodRichard]

It's only sound, guys. It's whatever YOU do with it. Fission makes energy; YOU choose to use it for lightbulbs, or for bombs.

[baroqueman1]

This is a fine recording of a stirring work. However, the imagery is very disturbing even now, although I am aware of the fact that nowadays a number of Jewish conductors/ musicians play Wagner's works. I trust that the pictures shown on the video are meant to portray the macabre irony of the whole Nazi situation, as opposed to being pro-Nazi. Certainly the last image epitomizes the horrifying truth which belies Wagner's beautiful music and indeed perhaps Wagner's own outlook.

[hamster6791]

Could You not spoil such a great music with such a disgusting last picture? Nethertheless, thanks for posting this Masterpiece.

[scientistpatrick]

@vHumboldt77 I'm afraid that you have misunderstood me, then, because I'm not demonizing Wagner's music; I am just pointing out that Wagner was an anti-semitic, and of course Baremboim wouldn't agree with Wagner on almost anything related to Israel, Judaism, or just anything semitic in general. The opera (to the extent of my knowledge) does not contain any anti-semitic quotes or "hidden messages", and I am not asserting that.

[vHumboldt77]

@scientistpatrick --yes, everything's related to everything....but you got my point about the absurd of demonizing Wagner's music, because a regime the guy didn't even dream of used his music for its own dreadful purposes...

[scientistpatrick]

@vHumboldt77 It obviously isn't as far-fetched as George Washington influencing Herbert Hoover, although even that isn't absurd at all; without George Washington, there would be no country in which Herbert Hoover was president.

[vHumboldt77]

@scientistpatrick --that's as far-fetched as to say that George Washington had an influence on Herbert Hoover....A simple fact makes this type of silly statements (no offense) moot --Daniel Baremboim, probably one of the best orchestra conductors of the present day, himself an Argentinian of Jewish religion, has had the guts of bringing Wagner to Israel. There you have a free-spirited man that knows to do away with people's prejudices and values the essential, not the circumstancial....

[MrAlexKeaton]

I love this music.